Men were screaming, splashing, scrambling. Flashlights spun around and dimmed as they went underwater. Chang and the two soldiers in Caleb’s boat kept their lights trained on the first boat, keeping it illuminated for the capsized men to get back on.
The sphere came back for another swing, but this time both boats were out of its range, off to the side.
“Shit!” Renee grumbled. “What else do we have to contend with?”
“You have no idea,” Qara said.
“I do,” said Phoebe. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking close enough. But that’s it. Just that iron ball, a little pre- welcoming gift from Genghis.”
“You’d better be right,” Renee said, ruefully counting the soldiers ahead as they climbed back into the battered boat.
“We lost three,” Chang said, shining his light on the three floating, battered bodies.
Renee nodded. “Acceptable. Keep going. And you”-she glared at Phoebe-“had better be right about this.”
Phoebe nodded, but Orlando stepped up between them. “Listen, you want our help, you better start asking nicely.”
“Orlando,” Caleb cautioned.
“Fine,” Renee said, raising her gun in front of Orlando’s face. “Please just do what I tell you, or I’ll shoot your girlfriend and toss her over the side.”
“Hey,” Phoebe said. “I’m nobody’s-”
“Save it. Kid, help her out. And Caleb, maybe you should actually start contributing. I don’t recall your being of any use so far, except for prattling your academic bullshit.”
“Which,” Caleb said, “if I recall, helped to get us this far.”
Renee looked around the gloom, past the dead bodies. “Which is where, exactly?”
Caleb glared at her through his fogging facemask. Then he peered over her shoulder, to where the lights of the first boat were striking something a hundred feet ahead. A rough shoreline. “Here,” he said, moving to the head of the boat.
Chang barked a command to the lead boat, and a soldier pulled out a gun, aimed ahead as the boat approached the sandy shore, and fired.
The crimson flare left a sparkling smoke trail on its ascent. It rose at a slight angle, and kept ascending, illuminating odd shadows, glinting off impossibly white structures.
Caleb’s boat pulled up alongside the other, and all eyes were on the still-ascending flare. Chang whispered something, and three more flares fired out into the darkness. The first one dipped over a tall minaret and was lost over a skyline of domes, walls and turrets. The other, rising at a steeper angle, hit the roof of the immense cavern and stuck, sparking and smoking.
“More,” Renee said.
The flare guns fired again, four of them lighting up the darkness, dispelling shadows that had ruled undisturbed for eight centuries.
“Holy crap,” Orlando whispered, as they all gazed at the flickering red outlines of the city visible over the walls: palaces of polished white marble, temples of golden tiles and blue mosaic domes; winding walkways and soaring bridges, fountains and ponds; pillared temples and massive halls.
“The real Xanadu,” Caleb said.
Qara bowed her head, whispering something in Mongolian.
“Wait,” Renee said, pointing ahead, to the quarter-mile field stretching before the immense wall. Hard to see with the flares so high up, but it looked like the ground was composed of ridges, bumps and pockets. “Flares. Fire them straight ahead, now.”
As the men prepared to shoot, Phoebe cautioned, “I don’t think you want to see this.”
Three flares streaked out from the first boat, heading off at slightly different angles. The first struck something only fifty feet out, fizzled and then dropped. The other two went farther; one hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet.
Then each struck something and held, smoking, casting the surrounding area in a ghastly glow.
“Double crap,” Orlando said.
Twenty-thousand strong, they stood organized by their regiments, infantry on the right, cavalry in the center; archers on the higher ground to the left; and chariots, catapults, siege machines and banners on immense poles interspersed throughout. Grayish-white terra cotta statues, each one carved perfectly, detailed down to the grooves in their armor, the notches on the saddles, the hardened eyes brimming with loyalty, ferocity and menace.
“The welcoming party,” Caleb said. “Genghis’s army.”
7
Montross covered his face with his sleeve while Hiltmeyer and Harris coughed, backing away from the boat. “No way,” the colonel said, pointing to the cavern and the river with the silvery sheen that bent around a quick curve and headed into the blackest reaches beyond their flashlights’ beams.
“Hang on,” Montross said. He backed up, closed his eyes and hugged the Emerald Tablet close. “Alexander, let’s see how your father handled this from his side.”
“Masks,” the boy said at once. He was rubbing his eyes, also breathing through his shirt. “I saw them. All the soldiers had them, and they left three behind. For us.”
“Three?” Harris said, choking on the word. “Come on!”
“Easy,” said Montross. “Nina, go fetch them, and-”
“Be careful, I know.” She smiled wolfishly. “Your concern for me is touching.”
“I just want my mask.”
As she left, Montross pulled Alexander back to the tunnel leading from the room with the trap ceiling. “We’ll wait for her here where the air’s clearer.”
“What about us?” Harris asked.
Montross shrugged. “Tear your shirts, or jackets. Make yourselves something to cover your faces.”
Hiltmeyer grumbled, “You’ll poison us.”
“Either that, or I’ll shoot you.” Montross waved the Ruger. “Your choice.” He cleared his throat, then turned to the boy. “And you, Alexander, I need you to use this time to scout out the area ahead while I keep an eye on these clowns.”
Alexander shook his head. “But I don’t want to. Anytime I try, I know I’ll just see Dad, and I can’t, don’t want to see…”
“See what?”
“Can’t bear it.” He shook his head, covering his eyes. “What if I see him die, too?”
Montross knelt down and switched his gun to his other hand, still keeping an eye on their prisoners. “Just focus your mind, ask yourself a question, and only think about that question when you let your visions come.”
“What question?”
“Jeez, didn’t your father teach you anything? Never mind. I already know: ‘Learn by doing, learn from experience.’ Still, you must have sat in and listened to the Morpheus Initiative sessions.”
“A few times,” Alexander admitted.
“Well then, you know how it is. The question frames your visionary experience. You remote view what you’ve asked your mind to show you. In this case,”-he waved beyond, to the darkness along the river-“we need to know what’s waiting for us. Ask to be shown any traps on this river, anything that could stop us from reaching the great underground cavern and the city of Genghis Khan.”
“Too vague,” Alexander said.
“What?”
“The question. I know enough about it, as you said. I sat in on a lot of sessions with my dad, with Aunt Phoebe. I know you can’t have those multiple-part questions. Or you get crappy visions, something that just might get us killed.”
